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Text Appearing Before Image:e or tea-house, or gleamingwith the white-w^ashed walls of some fire-proof store-house. As we traversed its entire length no foul odoursassailed our nostrils, or hideous cutaneous objectsoffended our eyesight; nor did inconvenient wallsor envious shutters debar us from inspecting, as wepassed along, the internal economy of the shops anddwellings on each side. Light wooden screens, neatlypapered, and running on slides, are for the most partpushed back in the daytime, and the passer looksthrough the house, to where the waving shrubs of acool-looking back-garden invite him to extend hisinvestigations. Between the observer and this retreatthere are probably one or two rooms, raised abouttwo feet from the ground; and upon the scrupulouslyclean and well-wadded matting, which is stretchedupon the wooden floor, semi-nude men and women lolland lounge, and their altogether nude progeny crawland feast themselves luxuriously at ever-present foun-tains. The women seldom wear anything above their I

Text Appearing After Image:A hklJY AT aRR TOILET. SHOPS AT NAGASAKI. 19 waists, the men only a scanty loin-cloth. In the mid-day, during the summer, a general air of languor per-vades the community : about sunset the world beginsto wash, and the Japanese youth, like copper-colouredCupids, riot tumultuously. The shops do not generally contain those articlesin lacker and china ware for which Japan is sojustly celebrated. To obtain them we must visitthe Dutch or Russian bazaars; but our interest iskept alive by the varied productions of native manu-facture exhibited in the shops, which are as opento the street as stalls at a fancy-fair, and whichcontain all those articles which are in common requestamong the people. Umbrella, fan, and shoe shopsabounded; bazaars for toys and glass ornamentsarrested us for a moment; but time was precious,and we could not do more than glance cursorily atthe novelties displayed, and vainly endeavour to com-prehend the object of various processes and manu-factures which were being ind

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